The Witness (3 page)

Marwan decided he would try to find the taxi that had brought him to the hotel. If it was still out front—if the driver had not yet been scared off by the commotion or forced to leave by the police, or if he had not gotten sick of waiting—Marwan would consider it a sign that he should run. He would head to Milan, then to Rome, and then get back to his brother in Beirut as soon as he could.

But if the taxi was not there, if there was no way to escape, Marwan would accept this as a sign that he should remain, that his fate was sealed, that he must go to the police and take his chances.

Perhaps if there had been more time, he would have devised a more clever plan. But there were only precious seconds now.

“Don’t you move from under that bed,” Marwan commanded the couple, who continued to cower under the box springs.

Marwan stuffed the pistol into his belt and ran into the bathroom. He splashed water on his face and hands. He washed as much blood out of his hair as he could.

Gently, he slid off his jacket and pulled his shirt over his head, realizing for the first time just how badly he was hurt. He used a warm washcloth to clean the excruciating gash in his shoulder. The entry wound was not large, but the area around it was discolored. There was no exit wound in the back, which meant that the bullet was still in there. He desperately needed to get the bullet out and the wound cleaned. And even then, he knew he still ran a serious risk of an infection.

But there was nothing he could do about it now except swallow a handful of pain relievers, which he did, taking them from a plastic bottle beside the sink. A black T-shirt lay crumpled in a ball next to the tub. He snatched it up and slid it over his head. It smelled of American cigarettes and cheap champagne.

Next, he stuffed a dry washcloth under the shirt as a dressing for his shoulder wound and ditched the rest of the bloody towels in the tub. He wished he had some alcohol or other antiseptic to soak the washcloth with, but at least for now, this would have to do. After sliding his jacket back on, he grabbed one of the couple’s garment bags from the closet by the bathroom, bolted out the door, and ran toward the emergency exit.

He raced down the stairwell and peeked out the hotel’s side door. The first police car had reached the hotel. He saw two officers jump out and run into the lobby. He also saw his taxi still waiting for him, just a few yards away. He made a dash for it and climbed into the backseat.

“The airport,” he said in French.

But the man did not move.

Marwan repeated himself in English, but still nothing.

He leaned forward to shake the man awake and saw blood on the dashboard and the passenger seat. The driver was dead—shot in the left temple.

Marwan spun around and drew his pistol again. He scanned the parking lot, the road, the front entrance. He saw no one. But he heard more sirens approaching.

What kind of sign is this?
he wondered. He had a car but no driver.

And then a terrible thought came over him. His fingerprints were all over the door and interior of the taxi. If he ran now, he would be suspected of murder. A warrant would be issued for his arrest. His career would be finished. His company would be ruined. Rich men didn’t hire bodyguards who were wanted for murder, no matter how loudly they insisted upon their innocence.

But running offered one benefit that staying might not—the chance to live.

With all that had just happened, Marwan was convinced that staying in Monte Carlo was a death sentence. The people hunting him knew too much about him, and they had the initiative. Running at least gave him the hope of getting out of Monaco, out of Europe, and slipping off the grid until he could figure out who was after him—and why—and plot his next move.

It was decided. He would run.

Marwan glanced behind him and from side to side. For the moment, there was no one around. He reached over the dead man and found a switch to lower the driver’s seat all the way back. When that was done, he dragged the man’s body into the backseat. Then he got out, went around the car, opened the front door, and popped the trunk.

In the trunk he found a blanket and some maps. He quickly laid the blanket over the body and tossed the maps into the passenger seat. Marwan reached into the glove compartment. Beside the owner’s manual, the registration, an insurance card, and several pads of blank receipts, there was a small stack of napkins and some ketchup packets. The napkins would have to do. Marwan glanced around again, then cleaned up as much of the blood and bits of the driver’s head from the interior of the car as he could, as rapidly as he could. He felt his gag reflex triggering at what his hand felt through the napkins, but still he pressed on.

Fortunately—at least for Marwan—the driver’s side window had been open when the man had been shot. The window itself was still intact. Marwan got into the car, rolled up the window, turned the key, and checked his rearview mirror. His shoulder was throbbing, but he had no time to think about that.

Flashing lights were coming up fast.

The manager of the hotel ran out the front door and waved the police in. He yelled something that Marwan couldn’t hear but took to mean “move.”

Marwan complied, cautiously pulling out of the hotel driveway and heading west.

Italy was a mistake, he decided. France was better. He had some cash, clothes, and half a dozen fake passports stashed in Marseille, as he did in several cities throughout Europe and the Middle East, a necessary precaution in his business. Depending on traffic, he could be in Marseille in just a couple of hours. There, he could ditch the car and body and catch a plane for Casablanca.

It had been years since he’d been in Morocco, and he had vowed to never go back. The scar from the knife wound on his side gently tingled as he thought about what had happened there. However, Casa was also where one of his closest friends lived—a man who had been on many missions with him a lifetime ago; the one man, besides his brother, whom Marwan knew he could trust—Kadeen al-Wadhi.

6

Marwan wound through the streets, passing from Monte Carlo into the neighboring residential ward of Saint Michel. He was anxious to get onto La Provençale, the freeway that would take him to Marseille. There was something that was keeping him from heading that way, though—a black Peugeot about a block and a half back.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been there. In the craziness of leaving the hotel with a dead body in the backseat and a bullet in his shoulder, he had forgotten one of the key tenets of being a security man—always watch your back.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Marwan didn’t want to tip his hand about heading to Marseille, but he also couldn’t afford to spend all evening on a tour of Monaco’s ten wards.

Keeping one eye on the rearview mirror and one eye toward the front, he made a right turn. Sure enough, the Peugeot turned after him. Two blocks up, he turned right again. Ten seconds later, his shadow followed. After two more right turns, he had completed a circle. Now there was no doubt in his mind that he was being followed. He needed to lose them, but where? The last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of the police with some insane high-speed chase.
If I could just—

A car pulled from a side street right in front of Marwan. He slammed on the brakes, but not quickly enough. The taxi plowed into the side of the car. The air bag exploded in his face, then deflated. The shock of the slam to the face was quickly replaced by excruciating pain from his shoulder. He cried out, but the cry quickly turned into coughing from the air bag’s powder.

Suddenly, his head was thrown backward as the car that had been trailing him hit the cab from behind.

Instinctively, he dropped flat along the front bench seat. Half a second later, the rear window shattered. The pistol that had been on the seat next to him lay on the floorboard. He reached for it, pointed it over the back of the seat, and fired off two rounds.

Pushing open the passenger door, he slid across the seat and out onto the street. The agony from the collision with the pavement caused his vision to momentarily gray, but he shook himself alert. He rolled to give himself a view of the car behind. As he did, a man with a gun stepped out. Marwan fired two shots, both connecting with the gunman and dropping him to the ground.

Bullets thunked into the door Marwan had just pushed open. He swiveled back around and connected one of two shots directed at a man who was firing over the hood of the car he had hit. One shot was enough.
Two down. How many more to go?

He heard yelling but couldn’t make out the words.
Still more than one.
He rolled so he could see under the car. A pair of feet was slowly making its way along the other side. He fired one shot into the right ankle. A man cried out and fell.

His head cracked on the pavement, then turned. His eyes locked with Marwan’s for what seemed like a minute, though it was less than a second.
I hate seeing their faces,
Marwan thought as he fired his weapon. One of the man’s eyes disappeared; the other went lifeless.

There’s at least one more around here somewhere,
he thought as he scanned under the car one last time. He pushed himself into a squat. Looking around, he didn’t like what he saw. Although this was a quiet residential street, the battle was beginning to draw spectators. He knew he had only a matter of minutes before the police arrived.

Marwan glanced up through the taxi’s windows, but the other side of the car was clear. He dropped back down.
Where is he?
He listened for any signs of movement, any breathing or coughing that would indicate he was close.

“Mon dieu,”
cried a woman’s voice from the house in front of him. Marwan twisted to his left and fired, a lucky guess that saved his life. The fourth man buckled forward, then collapsed toward the curb.

In a squat, Marwan made a circuit of the cars, making sure that no attackers were left. He heard voices and looked out. People were beginning to come out of their houses.

“Are you okay?” one man called out. “I saw the whole thing. Who were those men?”

Instead of answering, Marwan quickly assessed the situation. His car and the car that he hit were clearly undrivable. But the Peugeot . . .

“I called the police. They’re on their—”

Marwan pushed past the first man who had arrived at the scene. The man called out to him, but he ignored him. He reached into the taxi and pulled out the bag he had taken from the couple at the hotel.

Then, amid the angry curses of the neighbors who had come to help, he slid into the front seat of the Peugeot. He twisted the key, threw the car into reverse, and backed down the street, hoping that no one had written down the license plate number from the back bumper.

When he got to the next intersection, he slammed on the brakes, pulled the car into a one-eighty, then raced off the way he had come.

7

Soon Marwan was heading west again. He kept a close watch on his mirrors but this time didn’t see anything. Keeping his right hand loosely on the wheel, he reached up and gently touched his shoulder.

He sucked in air through his teeth. The pain, although extreme, he had expected. The dampness from his blood soaking through the hotel washcloth, he had not. His jacket and the black T-shirt would hide the spreading stain for a while, but not long enough.

Pulling to the side of the road, he took out a small pocketknife and used it to cut a large swatch out of the fabric of the passenger seat. He folded the square twice over.

Gritting his teeth, he reached under his shirt and tugged at the washcloth. When it finally gave, he quickly tossed it to the ground. He threw his head back against the headrest and rode the wave of pain. When it finally subsided enough, he slid the fabric square under his shirt and over the wound.

His head spun as he slowly pulled out into the street.
Keep it together!
he told himself.
You’re still a long way from safe.
He needed to get to Marseille. But first he had to get rid of the car.

He was still trying to come up with a plan when he crossed from Monaco into France—a border that was rarely, if ever, monitored. Soon after, he saw a sign for the town of La Turbie. A plan began forming in his mind.

Upon entering the town, he followed the signs to the Trophy of Augustus. This stone monument that towered more than thirty meters into the sky was built in 6 BC by the Romans to celebrate Emperor Augustus’s victory over the tribes that once ruled the Alps. The monument and the surrounding ruins drew tens of thousands of visitors each year.

But Marwan wasn’t going there for the history. In fact, he wasn’t planning on getting beyond the parking lot.

He drove past the line of tourist buses and in among the cars. Finding an open space, he pulled in and waited. He drummed his fingers on the Peugeot’s steering wheel out of nervousness and impatience.

Once he saw that the lot was clear of people, he quickly got out of the car. Using the butt of his gun, he smashed the rear driver’s side window of an Avis rental Citroën C3. Reaching in, he opened the rear door. Then he transferred his bag over and popped the lock for the front door.

Once in, he reached under the dash and got the car started—a skill that he and his brother, Ramy, had practiced often but never really thought they’d use. As he pulled out, he looked to the great stone structure that towered over the city.
I wonder if life was as complicated back then as it is now. It couldn’t have been. You either worked a farm and waited to be raided by a conquering army or a wandering horde of barbarians, or you fought with a conquering army or a horde of barbarians. Either way, you knew that whatever you started out as in life, that’s probably how you would live, and that’s probably how you would die.

We travel all over the world. We go places we have no business being. We have weapons to kill each other at long distances. And it’s not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad ones.

Despite himself, he started laughing—a dark, brooding sound.
Look who’s talking! You think of yourself as a good guy. Yet you’ve killed how many people today? And now, here you are making your escape in a stolen car. Face it, Accad, no matter what you tell yourself, ultimately, you’re not a good man. The only difference between you and the people you killed today is who’s paying you.